Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US President Donald Trump in 2019. Issues have deteriorated since then.
Narcissism is an age-old story. In scripture, the satan is a fallen angel trying to deprave Adam and Eve into consuming the apple. However, the genesis of human life is the problematic of sin; guaranteeing the banishment of Adam and Eve from heaven (the backyard). What we must be questioning is why is consuming the apple the unique sin when apples are made for consuming? This line of questioning exposes the illogicality within the punishment. The punishment doesn’t match the crime.
In the identical means, energy is an aphrodisiac for narcissists as a result of it signifies that as fallen angels, narcissists devalue and punish to take care of dominance over the opposite. We see this devaluation within the methods by which Making America Nice Once more is the personification of narcissistic censure to take care of dominance. This explains the necessity from a small group of primarily white males, making an attempt to guard their maintain on energy on the expense of a quickly approaching doomsday state of affairs. The satan or narcissist is ready to sacrifice the Backyard of Eden (Earth) for transient dominance over the opposite.
In line with Frantz Fanon, colonialism is pathologised as narcissism. For Fanon, colonials have stunted ego growth, which means that the narcissist is incapable of ubuntu (mutual recognition between the self and different) as a result of recognition was skewed for the narcissist. (Examples of this may be present in Black Skins, White Masks with the formation of the identification of the pied noir). Therefore, the narcissist stays traumatised by the preliminary wound of skewed recognition.
This recognition failure embedded within the logic of colonialism perpetuates a public psychological well being disaster of social narcissism. On this state of affairs, the narcissist makes use of skewed recognition to take care of energy by way of violence. However this additionally hinders the pleasure of seeing the opposite. Thus, colonialism is decided by an absence of ubuntu. Suppose again to the Zelenskyy/Trump dialog within the oval workplace the place Zelensky fails to acknowledge Trump’s authority. Trump infantilises and devalues Zelensky, highlighting the methods by which narcissistic harm shows its energy by way of disgrace and humiliation.
If narcissistic logic is utilized within the context of slavery, colonialism and apartheid, what we see is how the coloniality of gender turns into a automobile for enslaved feminine our bodies bearing the double burden of sexual and reproductive labour to make sure narcissistic provide (extra our bodies for the narcissist to take care of energy over). This type of management over the enslaved (feminine) physique has come to outline international politics.
From the geno/ecocides of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Palestine, we see the deliberate devaluation of our bodies within the World South to take care of Western Imperialism. Moreover, the shows of brutality on our screens (an indictment of our extractive consumerism resulting in the battle within the DRC), has emblazoned us in pushing again in opposition to our personal fungibility by taking to the streets worldwide to oppose our subjugation. However this additionally means extra blunt power with the rise of fascism. What we’ll see is extra photographs of brutality whereas the narcissist’s energy wanes as a result of historical past has taught us that empires fall leaving a bloody mess.
However, for us to know the narcissist because the fallen angel, we have to perceive the vicious cycle of hurt that’s perpetuated when a needed hiatus for reflection is misplaced. With cautious evaluation, we see that discard is the secondary wound of the fallen angel. Subsequently, narcissistic harm stays unhealed. Thus, the Backyard of Eden turns into purgatory for the satan with the fungible human changing into a sufferer of narcissistic harm. A therapeutic praxis is obtainable as a treatment that transmutes the wound right into a meaning-making second by way of recognition, reflection and restore. Vital processes that may result in love and forgiveness.
How does this connect with the narcissists of present geopolitics? There are two issues which might be taking place concurrently: 1. Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu is absconding courtroom and ethnically cleaning Palestine and, 2. “Cash. Cash. Cash. Is so humorous in a wealthy man’s world”; these ABBA lyrics allude to the video games that the wealthy play with the lives of the weak.
They make the foundations by transferring capital round and sustaining energy over others. It’s the grasp/slave dialectic of a capitalist enterprise mannequin as demonstrated by the Caribbean scholar Anton de Kom. In occasions like these, the one folks energy we’ve is to decide out of giving our cash to those wealthy males who serve the conflict financial system, thereby making us fungible whereas including to their energy and abuse.
What we must be doing is focusing our assets on constructing solidarity, security and connection to one another by bringing extra love into this world. Particularly, once we are confronted with hate crimes, geno/ecocides and extra state repression. Now’s the time to put aside our petty political squabbles and discover pleasure in neighborhood whereas resisting the narcissists.
If the conflict financial system is driving bloated defence budgets, then trumping the final socialists out of politics with Bernie Sander and Jeremy Corbyn ought to make us all really feel very stressed and able to push again and resist this new unfolding world order that can result in extra loss of life and destruction. Imam Muhsin Hendricks’ life must be our guiding gentle on this second with the significance of remembering the worth of freedom.
Nadira Omarjee is a decolonial feminist scholar affiliated to the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and to the College of the Witwatersrand. She has printed two books: We Belong to the Earth: In the direction of a Decolonial Feminist Pedagogy Rooted in Uhuru and Ubuntu and Reimagining the Dream: Decolonising Academia by Placing the Final First.